Rotation is essentially bone animation. The artifact's geometry is attached to a bone, and the bone rotates using keyframes.
If you simply place geometry without bones or with incorrect bones, how will it start working with the old animation?
You need to attach the new geometry to the old bone. This can be done using an effect or normally in a 3D editor.
I'm doing it the same way as in the Estonian's video. In Maya 6.0, I press Skeleton --> Join Tool ---> center this Join Tool ---> in the list, using the middle mouse button, I drag the imported mesh into this bone ---> I rename it to Global ---> I select it --> Edit ---> Group ---> I rename it to Global ---> I export it.


